The Collected Short Stories of Gilmore StewPidness
by Stew Pid
Summary: Because Spring's a good time for cleaning.
1. Spring Cleaning: An AN

Hello all! It's been a long time since I've said "it's been a long time." How are you? I hope all are well. A while ago, I woke up and realized I was not a writer and made a decision not to write any more (except where necessary, of course). Still, I never made it anything official. This week, however, we've commenced Spring cleaning at my house and with an urgent need now for more space (both physically in the house, and technologically on the computer), it occurred to me that I should throw out my notebooks. It has been an altogether painful experience, but I have decided, when it comes to my fanfiction at least, to mitigate the pain by typing up and posting my postable unposted stuff (say that three times fast). I do this with two hopes. The first is simply that those who read them get maybe some enjoyment of them, the way you can get enjoyment from an old-timers stickball game when baseball season is not in session. The second hope is more selfish, and it is that someone might read the stories for what they are and see some potential in the idea of them to maybe take up something similar themselves. Dreams die hard. Maybe I'm just trying to keep part of it alive. I don't know. Sometimes you can't think too much and you just have to do. So I'm posting. How's that?

I dedicate this collection to all the wonderful writers I have met in trying to follow in their footsteps: AvidTVFan, columbiachica, Connecticut Junkie, d-nise, DodgersGirl, emrie, Green Eve, Heather Nicole, Holly Gilmore, Jewls13, katem-23, kimlockt, lucia marin, melia, Morganabel, someone5…I know I'm forgetting people as I suppose is inevitable considering I haven't taken any gingko in ages, but hopefully, you know who you are, and if you don't, include yourself anyway. This goes out to all you writers. Cheers.


	2. Chapter 6

By: Stew Pid

Rating: Should be okay.

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff.

A/N: This is the beginning of ch. 6 of Season 4 As NOT Seen on TV. So yep, that fic will remain unfinished. It wasn't really off to a good start anyway, don't you think? But hey, if you think you can salvage it and want to pick it up again, you don't need my permission. You have my blessing. If you want my notes, I don't have them anymore, but I might be able to get them. Even if I can't, I can always jot them down again. I don't think that breaks with my decision. Just let me know. Or you can take it your own way. Or you can not take it at all. It's up to you. So here's the beginning of ch. 6…

(Gilmore Residence. Rory is studying on the couch. Lorelai comes in.)

Lorelai: Good news.

Rory: You bought the yellow shoes you've been drooling over for over a month.

Lorelai: Well, not that good, I guess. No, they start working on the new Inn tomorrow.

Rory: Well it's about time.

Lorelai: I know.

Rory: That's great. Congratulations.

Lorelai: Of course, I'm going to need shoes to match the hard hat. I guess I'm just going to have to get those shoes after all.

Rory: You can write it off as a business expense.

Lorelai: Yes, very good.

Rory: Of course, you're the business owner so you're still going to have to pay for them.

Lorelai: Ugh. The price of power.

Rory: 59.99.

(Next day. Luke's. Luke exits the diner with some plates and finds everyone is gone. He puts the plates down and looks outside. All are gathered by the Town Square. There is an ambulance. Luke hurries over.)

Luke: (to a crying Babette) What's going on?

Morey: Newspaper dude got in an accident. Doesn't look good.

Luke: Bootsy?

Miss Patty: I saw everything. Oh, it was terrible.

Babette: He was just walking, and BAM!!

Luke: Bam?

Miss Patty: It was more like a BOOM!!

Luke: Boom?

Morey: Sounded more to me like a WHUMP!!

Luke: What?

Kirk: Well, to be completely accurate, the BAM was at the first contact, followed by a BOOM from the force of the impact, and the WHUMP was when he hit the floor.

Babette: Why would it WHUMP when he hit the floor?

Kirk: My guess is a vitamin deficiency in his diet.

Miss Patty: Oh, the poor thing.

Luke: Could somebody please tell me what happened?

Morey: Pay attention, man. The guy got hit by a bus.

Babette: A tour bus.

Miss Patty: I always thought those things were dangerous. People are always looking to the left or to the right. Never right in front of them.

Luke: Might have helped Bootsy if he looked to the right and left.

Miss Patty: Luke, I'm appalled. Can't you be a little more sensitive?

Luke: So how bad does it look?

Kirk: Vital signs are okay. Looks like he's sustained a couple of broken bones. He'll be okay. They just need to get him to the hospital before he loses any more blood.

Babette: What's taking them so long?

Kirk: Oh, that's right. (out loud) All right, everyone. Back it up. The show's over. Nothing more to see. We have to get this guy out of here.

(A lady paramedic loads Bootsy in the ambulance.)

Lady: Is anyone coming with him?

Babette: Someone should go with him.

Miss Party: Yeah. The poor thing shouldn't be alone at a time like this.

(Taylor pushes through with a megaphone.)

Taylor: All right. Everyone calm down. Everything is being taken care of. I've just filed the police report. It seems he will be okay.

Miss Patty: Taylor, someone has to go with him.

Taylor: You're absolutely right. Any volunteers?

(The crowd begins to thin. Everyone has something to do.)

Babette: I'd go but Morey and I are cat-sitting.

Miss Patty: I have a class in ten minutes.

Luke: (to the dispersing crowd) I hope some of you are headed back to the diner to pay for your orders.

Taylor: Luke, how could you think about money at a time like this? Since we have no volunteers, I'm commissioning you to go.

Luke: What? You can't do that.

Taylor: Why not?

Luke: Because this isn't the Soviet Union, and despite the resemblance, you're not Stalin.

Taylor: How dare you compare me to a Communist? Let me remind you that this is really your fault.

Luke: What are you talking about?

Taylor: Let's not forget who sabotaged my motion to install a streetlight here.

Luke: That streetlight sabotaged itself. It was completely ridiculous. By the next week, I wasn't the only one complaining about it. And I wasn't the one who set up a tour route around Stars Hollow?

Babette: That's true, Taylor.  
Miss Patty: I always said tour buses are dangerous.

Taylor: Don't listen to this insensitive rabble-rouser.

Luke: Look, I'm not blaming anyone for what happened. It's Bootsy's own fault. I'm just not going with him.

(There is a collective gasp.) I have a business to run….I have a kid to take care of…I have a life…Fine. I'll go.

Babette: Atta boy, Luke.  
Miss Patty: That's the Luke we know and love.

Luke: Yeah, fine, whatever. (He mounts the back of the ambulance. Kirk shuts the door and gets in behind the wheel.)

Luke: You're a paramedic?

Kirk: Yeah. I took a test over the internet. Got my license in the mail.

(Luke rolls his eyes and looks over at a semi-unconscious Bootsy, who looks groggily at Luke)

Bootsy: Mama?

Luke: (sighs) God help me.

A/N: If you're wondering where any of this was going, aside from (hopefully) to your funny bone, this chapter was going to lead to nowhere until it later leads to Luke breaking up with Nicole. For those concerned, Bootsy is going to be okay. To make a long story short, Luke finds out Nicole used to date Bootsy and it freaks him out. A rather funny breakup in contrast to the show's more serious one, but again, my psychic abilities: another man was involved.


	3. Remembrance of Things Not Come to Past: ...

By: Stew Pid

Rating: Should be okay.

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff.

A/N: This was the only finished product from a period of major struggling with my writing capacity. It is a three part piece. I should say that I had high hopes for this fic. I had finished the first three volumes of Proust and was hoping to do some ruminations of my own on time and life in the Gilmore setting, along with some "Proustian" (not really) temporal gymnastics. It's really not a good piece at all but finishing it was something for me. Hope it does something for you.

Remembrance of Things Not Come to Past

Part 1.

I love you.

The words hung heavy in the air as though the wintry winds had frozen them, a suspended hunk of ice in which time was trapped. She watched him go, her eyes shooting the moment like a camera in slow-mo; watched as he opened the car door, watched as he glided inside, watched as he turned the key. His car now passed her, the thick, warm and polluting exhaust laying siege on the pure crystallized moment, melting and hammering through the ice until the moment was gone. And he was gone. Again. Yet, it was not what had just transpired that Rory thought about as she stood transfixed in voluntary paralysis. Nor was it about those past moments they had shared, a medley of joys and heartaches, words spoken that built up to those last three and those never said that built up to so many unspoken good-byes. Instead, she thought about a moment some time in the future when they would meet again—it seemed their fate to cross paths for all too finite moments.

It would be a frosty night like this one, somewhere between 2 and 200 miles away from Stars Hollow. She would duck into a bustling café for a hot cup of coffee. After paying for her coffee and guiding it through the crowd of cold, thirsty customers, she would slide thankfully into the last empty table. From her purse, she would pull out a book, and set it neatly on the table, then remove her gloves, unbutton her coat and undo her scarf. She would pick up her gloves from the table and looking out in front of her, feel for her pocket where she would slip them in. It would be just then that she would see him. He would be getting his coffee, moving down to the end of the counter where he could lean against it and warm up indoors as he drank the hot beverage. She would take some seconds to try to remember exactly who he was. No. She had a good memory. She would remember. And he would not be likely to have changed much. Maybe some gruffness here and there on his cheeks and chin. She would remember. But she would remember him like one in a catalogue of ex-boyfriends. His eyes would meet her from behind the rim of his coffee mug. Catching the flash of recognition in his eyes, she would smile and tilt her head to the empty chair at her table. He would wipe the invisible coffee mustache with his lower lip in tacit acceptance of her tacit invitation. Arriving at her table, he would curl his lips in a casual smirk and breathe, "Hey."

"Hi," she would say, still smiling. "Long time, huh?"

"Yeah," he would agree and sit down. "So what have you been up to?"

"Working, mostly. How about you?"

"Same."

Neither would remember what plans the other had planned way back when, or even ever having known those plans, so "working" was sufficient knowledge for both of them.

"Do you live around here?" she would ask.

"No. Just passing through on a job. How about you?"

"Same. Well, sort of. I'm actually going to visit my mom now on my way to a job."

"How is she?" he would ask innocuously.

"She's good."

"Good."

"Luke's good, too," she would add politely.

He would nod unembarrassed. "Are you?"

"Am I what?" she would ask genuinely perplexed.

"Good."

"Oh yeah, I'm good."  
"Good," he would smirk.

By now they would have both drawn up from their memory files a brief summary of their relationship with more specific account of the details of the break up, and yes, the "I love you."  
But they would have both said more "I love yous" to other loves that did not last. Again, theirs was just one in a catalogue of fated "I love yous." Not even the faintest echo of the words would hang between them.

"I'm really not used to this cold," Rory would resume.

"Been awhile?"

"Yeah. I was in Peru for three months."

"That would do it."

"Yeah," she would nod with a small laugh and take another sip of coffee.

"But you get used to it," he would say, half matter-of-factly, half reassuringly.

"That's right. You were in California, weren't you?"

"A while ago, yeah."

"So you've had time to get used to it."

"I never really got used to California."

"I like California. Anywhere that's warm is good right now."

Jess would smirk again, casually pick up her book and skim through it, while taking swigs of coffee. She, too, would retire meanwhile to her mug.

"_Visiting Mrs. Nabokov_. You like Amis?"

"Yeah," she would nod, setting down her mug.

"Well," he would say, putting down the book, "I better get going. Good seeing you again."

"Yeah, same here."

"Bye, Rory."

"Good-bye, Jess."

And with that, he would be gone. Again. She knew it would always be him who would leave first, and by then, she would be perfectly content to concede the rights to him. Alone at the table, she would recollect in more detail that night of his I love you. She would remember her that night. She would remember how the words first struck her, how the moment froze everything except him as he went to his car and left. She would think about how brokenhearted she should have been that night. And she would remember how, thinking of this day that night, she wasn't.


	4. Remembrance: Part 2

Part 2.

"I love you."

"I love you, too. How 'bout dinner tomorrow?"

"Your dad already asked me."

"Something just doesn't feel right about competing with my dad for dates."

"If it makes you feel any better, I won't kiss him."

"Aww, thanks."

"Sure." They both laughed. "Good night, Lorelai."

Lorelai hung up with Jason and looked at the time. Rory was still not back. It seems to be the case that in the moment after you've hung up with your boyfriend and before your daughter returns, being alone in the house suddenly becomes lonely. Of course, one is never really lonely with a bucket of chicken. When the secret came out in the open in Stars Hollow that Krusty's Fried Chicken was really just Swanson boxed chicken, the famous chicken lost many an indignant patron who refused to pay money eating out for what they already had in their refrigerator freezers. The Gilmores, however, had no problem buying Krusty's Fried Swanson Chicken. They loved Swanson chicken. They loved eating Swanson boxed chicken, not heating it up. Lorelai, for one, would gladly be Mrs. Swanson so long as she did not have to heat the meals at the Swanson household. She imagined that this made her less marriageable. She would need to marry a man who would not mind cooking the meals. Or doing the dishes. Still, she wanted a man's man. Not someone who would go about the house with a feather-duster and apron. Someone who could assemble an exercise bicycle if she were ever crazy enough to get one. Someone to clean her rain gutters. She'd need the handyman and housewife wrapped in one. But what would she bring into the marriage then? She imagined her beautiful, charming self. Okay. She was willing to admit if she ever married this dream figure, he would be getting the short end of the stick. That was the good thing about Jason. Not that she was crazy enough to already be considering marriage, but she was certainly old enough. Jason was a man of the world. He was a diner at restaurants, a hirer of repairmen and assemblers. Jason believed in the modern, capitalist empire of the digital era, the epoch of the automatic dishwasher, of working mothers and stay-at-home fathers, of his and her bathrooms rather than towels, the reign of the equalized households. Gender was absolved of its roles and could take its sole and proper purpose in the bedroom. Yes, marriage with Jason would be no problem at all. They would both work during the day in their own separate professions and play at night together. And then go off to sleep in their own separate bedrooms. Okay, there would be some problems. The real problem was that as much as she loved the idea of creating a modern household with Jason, there was something in her that yearned for the traditional. It was probably the result of being so long in a small town, untraditional in its own sense of tradition.

She imagined herself in her perfect marriage. She would wake up in the morning in her cozy, warm house to the sound of a loud grumble waking her up to get her coffee and breakfast. Her eyes would open to the dent and wrinkles marking the former presence that shared the bed with her. She would yawn and stretch and get up. On her way to the bathroom, the delightfully intoxicating smell of fresh coffee would drift from the kitchen and play with her nostrils. She would take her time showering and brushing her teeth and doing her hair because he would fret over keeping breakfast warm and just knowing that would amuse her. When she would finally make it to the kitchen she would say obnoxiously,

"How long does a gal have to wait around here for some breakfast?"

"Good thing not as long as the breakfast had to wait for you," he would say, or some such thing. "You know, some people work on Saturdays."

"Yes, I have heard of that breed of masochists."

"Well, I have to go. Don't forget to pick that stuff up by Andrew and call Gypsy about my truck," he would say as he'd get ready to leave. Then he'd pause and politely add, "Please."

"Sure thing," she would say casually through a mouthful of pancakes.

"All right. I love you."

He would kiss her good-bye quickly on the lips, licking the residue syrup on his.

"I love you, too."

"Bye."

"Bye, Luke."

And he would be out the door.

__

But wait, she thought. _Luke_?


	5. Remembrance: Part 3

Part 3.

__

Oh I love you, girl  
Oh I love you.

"Such a beautiful voice," Rory sighed as she stared admiringly at the television.

"Such ugly hair," Lorelai added, matter-of-factly.

"But you know, I've often wondered if his hair is the secret to his talent. Like that guy whose strength was in his hair. And maybe if you shave Garfunkel's hair he sounds like…"

"His name," Lorelai completed.

"Why can't you just appreciate the fact that he has a beautiful voice?"

"Well, if his hair is responsible for it, I think I'd rather do without the voice."

"It's bothering me now," Rory pondered.

"The voice?"

"No, the hair."

"It's just bothering you now?"

"No, I can't remember who was the guy with the hair and the strength."  
"They so seldom go together."

"You know what I mean. The story. I think his girlfriend shaves his head and he loses his strength."

"I don't know but I like the girlfriend. Oh wait, I think I remember. Swanson."

"No. That was dinner."

"That's right."

The two remained silent in thought. Indeed, the memory is one of the most complex faculties of the human constitution. It must cause us to doubt whether we are masters even of our own selves. Memories are most abundant when we are trying to forget. But try to conjure a single memory when you are trying to remember.

"Why do I keep thinking it's Swanson?" Lorelai reiterated.

"No. Simpson."

"That's Homer."

Rory nodded and sloped back on the couch. Suddenly, she sat forward again in triumph.

"Samson. That's it!"

"Yeah, that's right," Lorelai congratulated. "So where's that story from?"

"Yeah, I can't remember."

"Shakespeare?"

"Hm. No, I don't think so."

"Maybe it _was_ Homer."

"Maybe."

These evenings of silly ruminations were the stuff of their mother-daughter memories. And they knew already that with them it would always be like this. Yes, Rory would move out on her own. They would both branch out in different directions, but their roots were in each other. They would watch late shows together over the phone. They would refresh each others memories with text messages. They would perpetually disagree about Art Garfunkel…well, maybe there was still hope for Lorelai. But what they already were, they would generally still be. And it was perhaps in this where they each found the strength to face the future.

Epilogue.

It was a particularly warm day in June some time in a future that in the grand scheme of things is never very distant. It was also humid. Particularly humid. Humid to the point that it was raining. With a newspaper roofed over her head, Rory ran into a roadside diner. It was rather a working man's oasis, populated with flannel-clad men with callused hands and greasy hair, a simple and polite, if rather indifferent, crowd. They greeted the new arrival with wan smiles.

"Is it raining out?" one asked obliviously.

"Seems like it," Rory laughed, carefully discarding the drenched newspaper.

"What'll it be, young lady," a burly but genial man asked from the counter.

"Just a coffee, please."

The man nodded, and Rory looked for a place to sit. There were many empty tables, but none were cleared.

"Sorry about the tables. The boy's on his break. He should be around shortly. Have a seat."

Rory sat obediently at the nearest table and stared at half-eaten sandwich, the unfinished drink, and the collection of empty hot sauce packets in the carton of remaining hot-sauce smothered fries left on the table without a tip. She could understand why "the boy" would need a break but she couldn't understand what pressing occupation kept the man at the counter from clearing the tables. It is always hard for young Attic women to understand the importance in which Spartan men hold critical discussion of the various weekend combats of the AFC and NFC teams. Chucking it to Gray's Mars and Venus, she pulled out a book and began reading.

"A coffee over there when you get a chance," she heard the man say. She imagined "the boy" had returned and was about to take issue with "when you get a chance."

"I'm still on break," "the boy" said in a very familiar voice.

Rory's breath caught in her throat and she was afraid to look up. Had she looked up, however, she would have noticed that Jess, a.k.a. the boy, his eyes just landing on "over there," was equally staggered and afraid she would look up. But she had seen this day, and although her success in predicting the future was thus far questionable, she was determined to play it out the way she had imagined it.

She looked up. Seeing him made it even harder to force a casual smile. She imagined that she must have instead looked to him like a stroke victim. She was parting her lips to say something, perhaps "hi" (she really did feel like a stroke victim) when he came up to the table and sat. She did not know quite what to make of this gesture until she watched him grab the half sandwich and eat it. So he was the non-tipper.

"You wouldn't like the coffee here. Don't waste your money. There's a place ¼ mile down that has pretty decent coffee," he said through a swallowing of sandwich.

"Uh, okay. Thanks," Rory said, putting her book in her purse and standing up to leave.

Jess sighed, almost inaudibly.

"You don't have to go now."

"No, I do. I really want coffee," she said, repressing annoyance.

"You could wait until it lets up out there. Have a donut."

"I don't know. How are _those_ here?" she muttered, the repressing over.

"Not much better than the coffee. But it's on the house."

She hated his charm most vehemently at that moment because she found herself slowly sitting back down. He now got up and fetched her donut.

Laying the rubber tire of a donut before her, he asked, "So how have you been?"

"Good. You?" she said, looking curiously at the donut.

"Good."

They both looked at the donut now as though it were the only point of connection between them.

"It's been a long time," Rory said, quite irrelevantly.

Jess nodded. "What brings you around here?"

"Work," she said, trying to recover the script.

"On your way to cover the bombing of Hackensack?"

She smiled mournfully as she had to recognize the fact that Jess didn't know the script.

"No, there was a change in plans. I'm going to Princeton to do a lecture. I decided I could as easily change the world being over a desk instead of under it."

"I bet you could."

"So what about you?" Yes, she wanted to bite back the question as soon as it came out.

"Different diner. No Luke."

"Looks like there's a bunch of Lukes here."

Jess laughed lightly. "Yeah, I guess."

It was the laugh that rubbed her the wrong way. He had no right to laugh. This should not have been fun for him. Why could she not be calm and casual and charming? Why couldn't she laugh? She was over him. She hadn't thought of him since that night. Why did he still have this effect on her? Why couldn't he just keep to the damn script?

He sensed he had done something wrong. She would be on the defensive, leaving him with the offensive. He reached over the table and grabbed her book. She was surprised and began to hope maybe the script could be rescued. Only she had messed up this time. It was Proust.

"I remember you reading this before. Just finishing?" he rather joked.

"No, I've read it a dozen times. Well, twice, but it feels like a dozen."

"I can imagine," Jess said, thumbing through the many pages.

"I'm using it for my lecture," she could not lapse into the casual silence of the script. "It's a really interesting experiment on time, memory, character, and perspective, and raises, I think, some interesting questions to ideas of fatalism, man's agency, change," Rory spewed off from her memory of her lecture notes. She suddenly got nervous when he looked up from the book and at her. "Well, yeah, it's about life and time and my lecture is about life in our times so I thought it would be relevant."

"Sounds like you know what you're talking about."

"Well, good, 'cause that's the illusion I'm going for."

"I think Amis wrote the best thing on time. 'And meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit.'"

Not _Visiting Mrs. Nabokov _specifically, but close enough.

"You, however, are immune, I guess," Jess added.

This time she would refuse the charm. "Nothing is immune to time."

They found themselves again in awkward silence. Jess reached for his drink, but either his eyes were still on the donut or elsewhere, and he knocked over the glass, a small puddle of soda set free on the table.

"I'm sorry," he said. But there was something about the intensity of his eyes on Rory, the deep earnestness of his tone, the blunt humility of his expression that left her with the impression that he could not be apologizing about the soft drink.

"Um, it's okay," she muttered softly. "I'd better go."

Jess nodded and cleaned the spillage with a napkin. She took her book and started for the door.

Turning back toward Jess, she said, "Good seeing you again."

"Yeah, same here."

And with that she left. She was the one to leave him. He finally let her. The ball was in her court. Still she could not say good-bye. She wondered how many times would they have to leave each other before they'd finally say good-bye, how long before that future she once imagined would be past. She hadn't thought about him in years, but she realized then that he had always been on her mind. The memory would not let go. She remembered her that night. She remembered how the words first struck her, how the moment froze everything except him as he went to his car and left. She thought about how brokenhearted she should have been that night. And it was only through the memory now that she realized she was.

He wasn't just one in a catalogue. He was the one. The one to love always, to leave always, and to meet again. It seemed their fate to cross paths for all too everlasting moments.


	6. Threadbare

By: Stew Pid 

Rating: Should be okay.

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff.

A/N: This story I wrote after my decision to stop writing immediately after the season finale. The title includes a self-jab that mitigates my breach of self-contract. Again, hope it does something for you.

Threadbare

He imagines her one day sitting at the bar at some Yale alumni cocktail, in a sporty blue dress with her serious blue eyes—Christ, even her eyes dress in school spirit. Maybe she'll still have her hair short or maybe when she's actually older she won't have to try so hard to look it. He imagines she orders her martini dry like her wit. He hears in the exaggerated decibels of the imagination the tinker of metal on glass, wedding ring on martini glass, to be exact, as she picks up the cocktail. He imagines she will have married Dean or someone bearing an uncanny resemblance to Dean with whom she would have had her 2.5 children and her pretty white house. He told her they were meant to be together, but he was right and wrong. He doesn't believe in fate. He believes in non-fate. He believes life fashions a destiny and then makes it impossible to ever meet it. Life always goes in the opposite direction of fate. You live to learn first what things are meant to be and then, with a little more living, that they never will be. Life is very proud and protective about its lack of meaning.

He imagines himself saying those very words aloud to her on a rainy day in their messy apartment. She rolls her eyes and slaps his stomach and says with that smile that gives the joke away, "Life does, too, have a meaning." He cocks his eyebrows expectantly and with a knowing smile indulges, "what?" She looks to her right and he reaches over to his left and hands her the dictionary. She thanks him and begins looking it up until she realizes he has ruined the punch line. Or she has for not remembering where the dictionary was…or being so predictable. He laughs, she pouts, and they kiss, and he hears in the exaggerated decibels of the imagination the sweet silence of the melding whisper of two souls. Meant to be, not to be. He had tried to assure her that he had changed, but what he didn't account for was the possibility that she might have changed, too. There were clues. The hair, the running. He should have known she'd changed. Whether it was college, him, sexual experience, or life itself, she was not the girl he left on the bus on his way from Stars Hollow. He doubted she could even be the girl who wanted to duck out in trenches reporting on wars throughout the world, from Afghanistan to Uganda. There was a time he might have wanted kill her—or kiss her—for her dreaming zeal, that courageous softness with which she faced the hard world. He would have called it foolish and naïve. Who would have thought that now that she was worldly, cynical, and desperately secure behind the ivy walls, he would miss that foolish naïveté that was her bravery and passion? And at last, he who thought he had been schooled in life and not in classrooms, had his report card returned and it turns out he failed that class, too. He was now foolish and naïve. Foolish to believe that life and fate were friends, to believe in Luke's books, to believe that she would go, to believe she would still want him. Where was his cynicism when he needed it?

He imagines her as he drives away from the uncomfortable-because-unfamiliar feeling of heartbreak. He imagines life has answers and one day it will give him some. Not all. If he would allow himself to admit fear he'd have to admit he was afraid of all the answers. Because the answer might be both roads lead to same dunghill. If life has proven one thing, it's that it is always changing. That's why it can't obey fate. Fate is too steady, wants to keep everything crystalline and perfect. Life is all about the imperfect, rolling around in the dirt and waking up different and dirty. Maybe she could have said yes and somewhere in Albuquerque they would have found themselves both changed and incompatible…and miserable. Life always leaves you a maybe, a place to imagine something different was really possible and only just missed by time and choice. Maybe when she's at that cocktail yawning with boredom at her life, she'll think about that night he came and offered her a way out, the night when risk and love, passion, chance, and fate were offered her…and rejected. And maybe she'll wonder if maybe she would have had a better life had she made another choice. That maybe it wouldn't have worked out would not matter because in "maybe" it could. They always have maybe. Maybe is the land of fated lovers. Maybe's just a rest stop, though, he tells himself. Stretch your legs, take a leak, read a cheap magazine. Then you get back on the road. You live and you change until you no longer recognize yourself or your memories. Most importantly, fate no longer recognizes you, and finally leaves you alone.

He imagines her as he drives his car, sitting with her hands in her laps playing with a blue thread. She looks a lot like _her._ She sighs and finally realizing that the thread is just thread, she lets it fall on the floor and disappears. And he wonders if he's finally free or dead.


	7. Eggshells

By: Stew Pid

Rating: Should be okay.

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff.

A/N: This was written directly after Threadbare (it was a productive day) and meant to be in continuation. There was supposed to be a third part to it but I didn't get around to it before I regained my resolve. So it ends with this.

Eggshells

She hopes she wasn't wrong. He's leaving Lindsey. They're both unhappy. They weren't meant to be. She hopes mother isn't _always _right. She knows Dean. He isn't that type of guy. He wasn't just after her sex. He loves her. He always took care of her. He is her knight in shining armor. Her safety…better end it there. Dean is not her safety net. He is the one. She's happy he was her first lover. How can one be so happy and so miserable? She's miserable because she's unsure and insecure. Dean was not supposed to make her feel unsure and insecure. He was not the one to leave her bobbing around in anxious desperation. Why hasn't he called? Has he spoken to Lindsey? Are they getting a divorce? Is he packing his suitcase right now as she weeps? She doesn't know. It's Dean—steady, secure, safe Dean—and yet, she doesn't know.

She hopes her reflection in the mirror will look different. And it does. Her cheeks are stained red with tears. It's an interesting phenomenon. Tears, just salty water, stain red, like blood. She's taken her science. She knows it's not the tears, but in fact the blood from the capillaries beneath her skin, swelling and bursting beneath her healing, breaking hands. She's supposed to glow, she knows, but she feels burnt out. She hopes when she remembers this day, the memory is a better skewing of the reality. In her mind she sees a painting she had seen once before in a museum, a fallen basket of eggs, the yolk-y mess, the girl's face so complicatedly unreadable, and the child trying to put the eggs back together. The caption on the painting explained that the broken eggs symbolized the young girl's lost virginity, and the child's futile attempt to repair the eggs signified the fact that once lost, virginity could not be recovered. She wonders if it's not just virginity, but if the heart is like an egg and once broken, irreparable. Was that the problem? Was that what they were really doing? Trying in vain to fix a broken egg? She had broken his heart. She knew that. Were they foolish enough to believe that they could have sex and start over, pretend like nothing between the night before the dance marathon and the night they just shared ever happened? And all the heartache would be wiped away, their hearts would remain in tact, safe and secure.

She hopes that the fools really are the wise ones. But it's all starting to come together for her in a way the pieces of eggshell never could. The problem was that everything had changed. She wasn't the Rory that thanked him for her first kiss. He wasn't the Dean that read _Anna Karenina_ for her. Those people were broken, irreparable, with irreparably broken hearts. He thought she, being the one who broke it, could fix his broken heart, and she thought that he, who, she could imagine, had never broken any heart, could fix hers. And they weren't acting with their heads. Her head would tell her to be rational, to realize what she was doing, to stop and wait. She had waited all this time. She could wait for a divorce. His head would tell him to be rational, to realize what he was doing, that in attempting to fix his heart, he was breaking another's. Not only was he no longer the bearer of security, but he was, as well, a breaker of hearts. Poor Lindsey. Another broken egg. What were they thinking? We weren't, she admits to herself. They were working from broken hearts. Nothing broken works very well.

She hopes she's wrong. She hopes hearts are not like eggs, that they can be fixed. The problem, the problem she has avoided thinking about up until now, is that Dean wasn't the one who broke her heart. It was _him_. Maybe if he hadn't come that night, if he hadn't come like some California earthquake shaking the fissures of her broken heart, she wouldn't have been in such dire need of repair. Maybe. The land of justifications, of blaming someone else. Maybe is always simple. The problem is never so simple. The simple fact is that the problem is very complicated. If she is wrong, as she hopes she is, and broken hearts can be fixed, then not only are she and Dean not so absurd and foolish and crazy, but neither was he. It would be easy to dismiss him for crazy. How could he think she would just pick up and go with him, without a plan, without thinking about it, without discussing it with her mother? She admits those were the conditions of her recent experience with Dean, but…Okay, she says to no one in particular, so what's your point? She's talking to herself and she responds that the point is that they are a yolk-y mess of broken hearts futilely trying to repair the irreparable, and hoping against all hope that hearts are not like eggs. And all they have is maybe. Maybe is the land of broken things.

She hopes that she was right and wrong. She hopes if hearts are like eggs and cannot be fixed, then at least like eggs, they can be thrown out. She hopes you can pick up a new one at the grocery store. She hopes she can get rid of her broken heart. And she wonders if she'll be finally free or dead.


	8. I Dream of Us

By: Stew Pid 

Rating: Should be okay.

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff.

A/N: I saved the best for last. This is my personal favorite. I almost can't believe it was me who wrote it. Enjoy. It's short.

I sit in a quaint little Connecticut house in the middle of small-town America. The town of Stars-Hollow probably doesn't have a population over 300 but it may soon be on the map due to one inhabitant already on his way to fame, the inhabitant in whose mother's house I now drink coffee. He first dazzled the east coast with his boyish good looks and swift Gene Kelly dance steps in the blockbuster indie smash Mr. Postman_. His next role will be starring as jujitsu fighting Mary Kay Salesperson Dirk Leclerc in this summer's _Don't Mess with My Makeup. _US Talks with Kirk._

Us: What was it like preparing for your new movie?

Kirk: Actually, there wasn't much preparation involved because I completely identified with the character. Totally the same qi.

Us: How so?

Kirk: Well, I've worked at Stars Hollow Beauty Supply for a good many months. I even have my own line of beauty products. See www.beautifullikekirk.com_ for details. As for jujitsu I was a junior black belt in kirkate-chi-tsu-do._

Us: Kirkate-chi-tsu-do?

Kirk: An advanced method of self-defense that combines the disciplines of karate, tai chi, jujitsu, akeido, and tae kwon do.

Us: Interesting. Under whose training did you study kirkate-chi-tsu-do?

Kirk: Master Cat Kirk.

Us: You come from a very small town. How are you making out with this sudden celebrity?

Kirk: I see Brooke Shields caved and told you about it. For the record, I deny the allegations.

Us: What?

Kirk: I'm glad you get my drift. I mean, she tried but she was just too short for my taste.

Us: Anyway, do you feel fame has changed you in any way?

Kirk: No. I'm still the same old Kirk I always was. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to clear the house for the 4 o' clock tour. It was nice talking to you.

The alarm goes off and he wakes up. He rubs his eyes and looks around the familiar room. He sighs. _It was just a dream._ He gets up and dressed, and goes downstairs to sweep the floors and open the diner. Flicking on the radio, _Mr. Postman _plays. _It was just a dream_, he repeats to himself, _a very bad dream._

The Final A/N: So things have come full circle now. Ten is a nice round number to end with. Again, I really enjoyed posting here. I hope this stuff does something for somebody. I will take this opportunity to say that while I now admit I am no writer, I remain a reader. My favorites, I know you and I will keep up with your stuff. But generally, if you're writing a fic, a newbie maybe, and you're not sure about it and would like to get a second opinion, there's always a Stew Pid opinion. Feel free to email. Though I should say that you shouldn't worry about it. I have found this group to be very supportive and merciful. Go for it! Now I have a lot of paper to fill those clear recycling bags with. Take care! And THANKS!!!


	9. Escavated Bones of Season 4

By: Stew Pid

Rating: Should be okay

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff

A/N: Hey! Me again. This is not new stuff, but I had written some conversations for Season 4 in my notes way back when which I had thrown out with my original fiction before I decided to post my fanfiction. But as you all know, the wonderful AvidTVFan was very much behind the whole season 4 enterprise and I had sent her all my notes for it a long time ago. She managed to dig up these old convos and sent them to me so I thought I'd post them in case anyone (I'm beginning to lose hope. Lol) wanted to use them or take up Season 4 As NOT Seen on TV for themselves. So here it is from me to Avid to me to you. A HUGE, ENORMOUS, GIGANTIC THANK YOU to AVIDTVFAN for EVERYTHING!! I dedicate this to you. Hope it does something for you all.

hey!! These are just some stupid conversations I thought up for after Lorelai and Luke get together. It's dealing with the whole thing of Lorelai and Rory being mother and daughter and Luke and Jess being uncle and nephew and whether that qualifies with the likes of a Brady Bunch romance. It's not a serious issue in the fic. It's just for humor. So here goes. This is just a rough draft. I hope it will get better and funnier.   
  
Lorelai: So, do you think it's weird?   
  
Rory: What?   
  
Lorelai: Me and Luke...   
  
Rory: No. I think everyone was expecting it eventually.   
  
Lorelai: But me and Luke, you and Jess...   
  
Rory: Yes, I guess we do hang out at that diner too much.   
  
Lorelai: Don't you think our bond is bordering on freakish when we start picking guys from the same gene pool?   
  
Rory: Only if we were wearing the same gene bikini.   
  
Lorelai: And I have a jean bikini. You don't have one, do you?   
  
Rory: Well, you've manage to ignore it on my Christmas list for some years now.   
  
Lorelai: Great. Good thinking. Go me!   
  
Rory: Feel better?   
  
Lorelai: I don't know. But you know how I would feel better?   
  
Rory: Mom, I am not breaking up with my boyfriend so you can go out with Luke.   
  
Lorelai: Come on. You've been going out for months now. It's about time you got rid of him, don't you think?   
  
Rory: No.   
  
Lorelai: Fine. We can alternate. One month, I get to see Luke and you don't see Jess. Next month, you get to see Jess and I don't see Luke.   
  
Rory: Are you serious?   
  
Lorelai: No, but I'm proud of myself that you had to ask.   
  
Later. Luke's. Rory and Jess are at the counter. Luke and Lorelai are talking at a table. Rory is feeling self-conscious now.   
  
Rory: Do you think it's weird?   
  
Jess: What?   
  
Rory: (gesturing toward Luke and Lorelai) Them.   
  
Jess: Yeah, but you can't explain attraction.   
  
Rory: No, I mean, he's your uncle. She's my mom.   
  
Jess: Really? Hadn't noticed.   
  
Rory: You don't think this could possibly qualify for Jerry Springer?   
  
Jess: If you were a midget with no legs and Luke was once a woman, possibly.   
  
Rory: So you're telling me you don't think it's weird?   
  
Jess: Well, this town raises the standards on weird daily.   
  
Rory: Fine, but think of it this way. If we all were ever to get married…   
  
Jess: Yes, in this country, I think group marriages are weird.   
  
Rory: You know what I mean. If we got married and they got married, not only might our children look a lot alike, but Luke would be our kids' great-uncle and their grandfather. You don't think that's weird?   
  
Jess: Happened with the Habsburgs all the time.   
  
Rory: And look what happened to their chins.   
  
Jess: There're plastic surgeons now. Don't tell me you really have a problem with this?   
  
Rory: No, I guess not. Wow, I can't believe I brought up our children.   
  
Jess: Yeah. I figured it was that time of the month.   
  
(Rory slaps Jess' arm.)

A/N: So seriously, that's all I have. AvidTVFan may have dug up my old bones for me, but she has some golden bones in her closet herself. Please check out her sole effort, a one-part fic The Evening Mists Were Falling Now. It's just stunning, a beautiful piece that may take you back to better days of bittersweetness, when the sweet made the bitter taste better.


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